UK Hotel Parking Index 2026: What 300 Hotels Charge for Overnight Parking

A hotel listing that says “parking available” can hide very different realities.

At one property, it can mean a free space outside the hotel. At another, it means handing over the keys for a £40-plus valet service. Elsewhere, the hotel may not have a car park at all, but instead direct guests to a public multi-storey with a discount code.

For the UK Hotel Parking Index 2026, BestUKHotels researched 300 hotels across 20 UK destinations, with a structured sample of 15 hotels in each place. We recorded whether a usable parking solution was offered, whether it was genuinely on-site, whether it was free, and the published overnight or 24-hour guest rate where a dependable figure was available.

The result is a useful reminder that the room rate is not always the full cost of a hotel stay for drivers.

The index at a glance

Hotels checked

300

UK destinations

20

Median paid overnight or 24-hour rate

£19Among the 167 hotels with a positive published paid rate

Sampled hotels with on-site parking

45.3%136 of 300

Sampled hotels with always-free parking

9.7%29 of 300; excludes direct-booking-only offers

Without a dependable fixed published price

32.7%98 of 300

Key findings

• 300 hotels checked across 20 UK destinations.
• £19 was the median paid overnight/24-hour parking charge among the 167 hotels with a published paid rate.
• 136 of 300 hotels (45.3%) had on-site parking.
• Only 29 hotels (9.7%) offered parking that was always free for hotel guests.
• Another 6 hotels (2.0%) offered free parking specifically to direct bookers.
• 98 hotels (32.7%) did not expose a dependable fixed overnight/24-hour price publicly.
• 33 of 167 published paid rates (19.8%) were £30 or more.
• 13 published paid rates were above £40.
• The highest numeric standard rate we found was £70 per day at Park Plaza London Westminster Bridge.
• In our Windermere/Lake District sample, all 15 hotels had on-site parking, and 11 offered always-free parking.
• Belfast showed the opposite pattern: only 1 of 15 sampled hotels had on-site parking, while 14 of 15 directed guests towards an off-site solution.

Important: This is a structured 15-hotel sample per destination, not a census of every hotel. Destination medians below refer only to sampled hotels for which a positive numeric paid overnight/24-hour rate could be verified.

Which destinations had the highest hotel parking charges?

London had the highest median published paid rate in our sample, at £39, followed by Edinburgh at £30, Cambridge at £29, Brighton at £28 and York at £25.

But the number beside the median matters. We could verify a numeric paid rate at only 8 of the 15 London hotels and 4 of the 15 Edinburgh hotels. Some hotels advertised parking or a discount without publishing a final nightly amount, so those cases were deliberately left out of the median rather than estimated.

Hotel parking by destination, ranked by median published paid overnight or 24-hour rate (15 sampled hotels per destination, checked 6 October 2026)

Rank	Destination	Median paid rate*	Published paid rates	On-site parking	Always free	Highest paid rate
1	London	£39	8/15	5/15	0/15	£70
2	Edinburgh	£30	4/15	4/15	2/15	£45
3	Cambridge	£29	10/15	8/15	0/15	£40
4	Brighton	£28	11/15	4/15	0/15	£45
5	York	£25	9/15	7/15	0/15	£49.50
6	Cardiff	£24.50	10/15	8/15	0/15	£35
7	Bath	£22.50	8/15	5/15	1/15	£50
8	Oxford	£22.50	8/15	7/15	2/15	£48
9	Manchester	£20	7/15	3/15	0/15	£45
10	Leeds	£18.25	10/15	5/15	0/15	£50
11	Birmingham	£18	9/15	8/15	1/15	£24
12	Bristol	£16.75	10/15	7/15	0/15	£19
13	Glasgow	£16.50	7/15	6/15	1/15	£45
14	Bournemouth	£15.50	8/15	14/15	1/15	£20
15	Liverpool	£15.50	12/15	5/15	0/15	£30
16	Inverness	£15	5/15	10/15	7/15	£20
17	Newcastle upon Tyne	£15	11/15	8/15	1/15	£20
18	Belfast	£14	11/15	1/15	0/15	£30
19	Chester	£12	9/15	6/15	2/15	£20
—	Windermere / Lake District	—No positive paid numeric rates in sample	0/15	15/15	11/15	—

The ranking therefore answers a specific question: among sampled hotels that actually publish a paid overnight or 24-hour parking rate, what does a typical charge look like?

It should not be read as a claim that every hotel in London charges £39 or every hotel in Edinburgh charges £30.

Median published paid parking rate by destination, highest first (destinations with at least one positive paid rate)

Destination	Median paid rate	Paid-rate sample
London	£39	8 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Edinburgh	£30	4 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Cambridge	£29	10 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Brighton	£28	11 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
York	£25	9 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Cardiff	£24.50	10 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Bath	£22.50	8 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Oxford	£22.50	8 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Manchester	£20	7 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Leeds	£18.25	10 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Birmingham	£18	9 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Bristol	£16.75	10 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Glasgow	£16.50	7 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Bournemouth	£15.50	8 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Liverpool	£15.50	12 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Inverness	£15	5 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Newcastle upon Tyne	£15	11 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Belfast	£14	11 of 15 hotels published a paid rate
Chester	£12	9 of 15 hotels published a paid rate

London was the most expensive destination in the sample

London’s £39 median paid rate was the highest of the 20 destinations researched.

Five of the 15 sampled London hotels had on-site parking, while seven used or recommended an off-site solution. The most expensive individual rate in the full study also came from London.

Park Plaza London Westminster Bridge currently states that its limited hotel parking is available on a first-come, first-served basis from £70 per day. The hotel is also within the London Congestion Charge area, which is a separate cost for drivers where applicable.

That £70 parking charge is nearly four times the £19 median paid rate across the full 300-hotel study.

Other London examples in the dataset also reached £40 and above, including The Bailey’s Hotel London at £50 and DoubleTree by Hilton London – Tower of London at £45.

For travellers driving into central London, parking is therefore not a trivial add-on. It can materially change the true cost of a one- or two-night stay.

Nearly one in five published paid rates was £30 or more

The overall median paid rate was £19, so extremely expensive parking was not the norm.

Of the 167 hotels with a published paid rate, 33 (19.8%) charged at least £30 in the rate used for our comparison. 13 were above £40.

At the same time, 105 of the 167 paid rates (62.9%) were £20 or less.

That creates a wide gap between ordinary and premium parking costs. The hotel, location and type of parking arrangement matter substantially.

The full distribution across all 300 hotels was:

What the 300 hotel records looked like: hotels by parking price band

Parking price band	Hotels	Share
Free, including direct-booking-only £0 rates	35	11.7% of the full sample
£0.01–£10	21	7.0% of the full sample
£10.01–£20	84	28.0% of the full sample
£20.01–£30	34	11.3% of the full sample
£30.01–£40	15	5.0% of the full sample
Above £40	13	4.3% of the full sample
No dependable fixed numeric price published	98	32.7% of the full sample

The final category is important. A missing number does not necessarily mean parking is unavailable. In many cases a hotel mentions a public car park, negotiated discount, valet service or nearby facility but does not publish a dependable final standard overnight price.

We chose not to guess.

“Parking available” often does not mean “hotel car park”

Only 45.3% of the 300 hotels in the study had on-site parking.

That distinction is especially visible in city-centre destinations.

In Belfast, just 1 of 15 sampled hotels had on-site parking. The other 14 had some form of off-site arrangement or nearby parking option. Manchester was similar: only 3 of 15 sampled hotels had on-site parking, while 11 used or recommended off-site parking.

This can matter as much as the price itself.

A £15 parking space beneath or beside the hotel is a different experience from a £15 public car park several streets away when a traveller is arriving late, carrying luggage, travelling with children or has limited mobility.

Our raw dataset therefore keeps parking availability, parking type and on-site status as separate fields.

Free hotel parking is now the exception in this sample

Only 29 of 300 hotels — 9.7% — offered parking that was always free to hotel guests.

Another six offered free parking under a direct-booking condition.

Those direct-booking benefits were especially visible in Bournemouth. Four sampled Bournemouth hotels offered free parking to direct bookers while publishing or being associated with a paid rate for some third-party bookings.

That is why our study does not combine “always free” and “free if booked direct” into one headline figure.

For a traveller comparing room prices across different booking channels, a £10–£15 parking difference can erase what initially looked like a cheaper room rate elsewhere.

The Lake District was the clearest free-parking stronghold

The strongest contrast with the major city-centre markets came from the Windermere/Lake District sample.

All 15 of 15 researched hotels had on-site parking. 11 of 15 offered parking that was always free, and one more offered free parking to direct bookers.

Inverness showed a similar, although less extreme, pattern: 10 of 15 sampled hotels had on-site parking and 7 of 15 offered always-free parking.

This is partly a reminder that hotel parking is a land-use story as much as a hotel-pricing story. Properties in dense historic centres are more likely to have constrained parking or rely on public facilities. Leisure hotels outside the tightest urban cores are more likely to control their own land and include parking in the stay.

The data does not mean every Lake District or Inverness hotel offers free parking. It does show a pronounced difference within the hotels we sampled.

Some individual parking charges are high enough to change the hotel decision

A few outliers stood out.

At The Grand, York, valet parking is £49.50 per night.

At Holiday Inn Express Bath, the hotel currently publishes £50 per 24 hours for its limited guest parking and warns that spaces are not guaranteed.

The Randolph Hotel Oxford, a Graduate by Hilton, publishes valet parking at £48, while several premium properties in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester reached £45 in our dataset.

For a three-night stay, a £45 nightly parking charge would add £135 to the trip.

That can be more consequential than a modest difference in the headline room rate.

Hotel parking has become a more valuable revenue stream

The pattern also sits within a broader commercial trend.

Knight Frank’s UK Hotel Trading Performance Review and outlook, published in February 2026, reported that hotel car-parking revenue was 32% higher than in 2019, and that hotels across regional UK recorded a 10% rise per occupied room in car-parking revenue in 2025.

The report describes car parking as part of the growing value of hotels’ ancillary revenue streams.

That does not mean every hotel is simply raising parking charges. City-centre land costs, public-car-park tariffs, valet labour and third-party parking operators all affect the amount a guest ultimately pays.

But it does explain why parking deserves to be treated as part of the total hotel price rather than a minor arrival detail.

Price transparency is surprisingly inconsistent

One of the clearest findings was not a price at all.

At 98 of the 300 hotels (32.7%), we could not verify a dependable fixed standard overnight or 24-hour price from the public information available during the research.

Some pages said a discount was available but did not show the final amount. Some pointed to a public facility whose tariff varies. Others asked guests to contact reception, pre-book a valet service or check the parking operator directly.

For the index, those hotels are marked “price not published” rather than assigned an estimated cost.

This is deliberately conservative. A research page is more useful if readers can distinguish a verified rate from an assumed one.

What drivers should check before booking a UK hotel

The parking price alone does not tell the whole story.

Before booking, it is worth checking whether the space is actually on-site, whether it can be reserved, whether leaving and returning during the same day affects the charge, whether there are height or vehicle-size restrictions, and whether the guest must register a number plate or validate a ticket at reception.

Also check whether “free parking” depends on booking direct.

A hotel with a £15 on-site car park may be more convenient for a particular trip than a hotel offering cheaper public parking several streets away. Equally, a city-centre hotel with no parking may be the better choice if the car will not be needed once you arrive.

The point of the index is not to say that the cheapest car park always makes the best hotel. It is to make a frequently hidden cost easier to compare.

Methodology

BestUKHotels researched 300 hotels across 20 UK destinations, using a structured sample of 15 hotels per destination.

The destinations were:

London, Bath, Brighton, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge, York, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne, Bournemouth, Windermere/Lake District, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Cardiff, Belfast and Chester.

The sample was designed to include a mixture of recognised hotel groups and independent properties across different types of location and price position. It is not a statistically random sample and not a census of every hotel in each destination.

For each hotel we recorded:

• whether a usable parking solution was advertised or recommended;
• whether that parking was on-site;
• the parking type, such as self-parking, valet or off-site/public parking;
• the published overnight or 24-hour guest price where a dependable numeric amount was available;
• whether parking was always free or free only under a direct-booking condition;
• the source used;
• the date checked; and
• a source-confidence flag for future auditing.

Definitions

• Parking available: the hotel offers, recommends, validates, arranges or explicitly directs guests to a usable parking solution.
• On-site: the parking facility is physically at the hotel or controlled as part of the hotel location. A nearby public garage or a hotel-negotiated off-site rate is not on-site.
• Always free: free for hotel guests without an explicit direct-booking condition.
• Direct-booking free: free only when the room is booked directly with the hotel. We keep this separate from always-free parking.

How we treated parking prices

Where a hotel published a normal overnight or 24-hour guest rate, that figure was used.

Where weekday and weekend rates differed, the leisure/weekend guest rate was preferred for comparison.

Where a source clearly stated a hotel discount from a named public-car-park tariff, a derived amount could be used only where the calculation was unambiguous and the basis was retained in the notes.

Free parking was recorded as £0.

Where a hotel mentioned parking but no dependable fixed numeric amount could be verified, the rate was left blank. We did not estimate it.

How the destination median is calculated

The destination median paid rate includes only positive numeric overnight/24-hour rates.

It excludes:

• free parking;
• hotels with no dependable numeric price;
• parking-package room rates that cannot be separated cleanly; and
• vague “from” or percentage-discount claims where a usable standard final amount could not be established.

Because the number of verified paid rates differs by destination, the results table publishes the sample size next to each median.

Sources and verification

We prioritised official hotel and hotel-group pages, then official tourism organisations and named parking operators where appropriate.

The downloadable raw data retains the source URL for every hotel.

For maintenance purposes, each row also carries a confidence flag:

• A — strong/current first-party or direct source;
• B — usable evidence with some inference, mixed sourcing or secondary confirmation;
• C — secondary evidence that should be prioritised for rechecking.

In the October 2026 dataset, 247 rows are confidence A, 52 are B and 1 is C.

All parking information was checked on 6 October 2026.

Parking prices and arrangements can change. Travellers should confirm current conditions before arrival.

Download the research data

BestUKHotels is publishing the underlying dataset so the figures can be checked and reused with attribution. The files list the source used for every hotel.

• Hotel-level data: all 300 records(CSV)

  One row per hotel, with parking type, on-site status, the rate used in the analysis, free-parking status, the source URL, the checked date, a confidence flag and notes.

• Full research workbook(Excel workbook (XLSX))

  Hotel data, destination summaries, article findings and methodology in one spreadsheet.

• Destination summary(CSV)

  Lightweight destination-level results for all 20 destinations.

You may reuse the data with attribution. Please credit BestUKHotels.com — UK Hotel Parking Index 2026 and link to this page.

Corrections and updates

Hotel parking is unusually changeable: public-car-park tariffs move, valet prices change, spaces are removed and booking conditions are revised.

If you represent a hotel in the dataset and believe a record is no longer accurate, please contact BestUKHotels with a link to the current published parking information. We will verify the change before updating the study. Read our corrections policy for how changes are recorded.

Editorial note

This research was compiled for BestUKHotels.com. Hotels did not pay to be included and affiliate eligibility did not determine the sample or ranking. The study is intended to make a practical hotel-booking cost easier to compare.